I have been very delinquent with my updates to the On The Turntable page. So much so that I completely missed March. So, in order to keep a clean house and have everything in order I have updated for both April and March. April is up on the current page, featuring Herbie Hancock’s incredible album Fat Albert Rotunda. While March is in the archive on the side bar. Unfortunately, March never got a fair shot but you can still enjoy it. It features one of my favorite short lived bands Blind Faith and their self titled album. Take a look at both, I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. For those desk jockey’s out there, these make for some great listening while hard at work in your cubicle. You can locate these links on the top navigation bar and the side bar archive… or you can just click the album covers below to listen to these albums in their entirety. Enjoy!

Blind Faith Fat Albert Rotunda

As a little extra fanfare, there are few videos to get you in the mood. The first is Blind Faith live at Hyde Park in 1969. They do an awesome version of The Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb”. Now, perhaps it’s just because I am a huge fan of young Steve Winwood but I think this rivals the original… Sorry Mic.

The next is the opening theme to Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert cartoon. For those not familiar with the Herbie’s Fat Albert Rotunda, it was inspired by the work he did for this show. To be clear Herbie did not write this theme but he did some work for the show as he was friendly with Cosby. That said, the album is FAR superior to anything ever featured on the show but this will likely get you in the mood and perhaps even trigger some nostalgia.

I love this song “Sneakin’ Sally Though The Alley”. It was written by New Orleans singer/songwriter Allen Toussaint who first recorded it with Lee Dorsey (as in “Working in the Coal Mine”) in 1971. Toussaint was his producer for Holy Cow and supposedly wrote this tune for Dorsey. Then in 1974, Toussaint was the producer for a young Robert Palmer and suggested they do a version which became the title track for his solo debut. The backing band for that version is none other than The Meters, who are fellow New Orleans natives and old friends of Toussaint. It is not confirmed but I have read that they also played on the original Dorsey version as well. It does sound like them, specifically Leo Nocentelli on guitar and George Porter Jr on bass, so I’m convinced. When you listen to Palmer’s version there is some really funky clav in there from Art Neville… I love it! The video below is the original music video made for this song. At the end, Palmer says he doesn’t know why they made it. Back in 1974 they didn’t even have an outlet for it yet, this predates MTV by 7 years. Anyway, it’s a cool video to watch now.

Here is the original 1971 Lee Dorsey version from Holy Cow. Still a great song that’s funky as hell and full of soul.

There is some live footage of Allen Toussaint playing this at Jazzfest back in 2009… it’s pure New Orleans. CLICK HERE TO WATCH

The jam bands love this song too. I remember seeing Phish play it a bunch of times and Warren Haynes plays it with Gov’t Mule. Follow the links below to hear their versions, both are very well done and surprisingly the quality of these recordings are great:

Hey! You there!

Most of these posts are not exactly HiFi quality but they are definitely best experienced through some decent speakers or headphones. Don't let that keep you from enjoying it though. Good tunes are just good, no matter what you're listening through.